


Moblin Simulator 2019

by safflina



Series: Moblin Simulator [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Gen, Illustrations, POV Second Person, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-05-31 06:31:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19420393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safflina/pseuds/safflina
Summary: What do monsters get up to while you’re off leisurely collecting Korok seeds? See through the eyes of one ordinary Moblin as he navigates life, loyalty, and leadership.





	1. Hunter

Your name is Knox, and you are stationed at a modest campsite in Necluda with four scrappy Bokoblins. You hunt and gather food, defend the camp from wandering treasure hunters, and have no idea you’re a part of a larger plan. Your life has been this way for as long as you can remember.

It is a beautiful evening. The sky is clear, Luz is manning the watchtower, Zed is cleaning a weapon, and a mountain goat is roasting over the campfire. The smell is warm and smoky. It makes your mouth water.

There was a Hylian out hunting, too, says Zed, casually leaning the club against the Weapon Leaning Log and settling back down by the campfire.

What, you say.

Zed says yeah, in the woods, they chased off some dummy all wrapped up in a cloak. They’re pretty sure it was a Hylian.

You grunt. That’s the most interesting thing to happen all week. Which is not to say it’s interesting by any means.

No, Zed’s got it all mixed up, says Din, gnawing on an apple core. It was a human, and they didn’t technically chase it off. It never got close in the first place.

Okay, _Zed_ thinks it was a Hylian, Zed admits, but who cares. All nonsters look the same, anyway, except Gorons—

 _“Nonsters?”_ you splutter.

Yeah, Zed says. Like, non-monsters?

You shake your head with a disapproving grumble, and Zed snorts. What do _you_ call them, Knox? You say you don’t have a name for them. You never really thought about it.

You sit back and adjust your arm-wrap as Din and Zed argue about what exactly it was they saw. The sun is setting and the fireflies are coming out by the time Mac gets the roast down and divides it up, offering you the Lynel’s share. You eat messily, letting juice run down your chin and wiping it on your shoulder. It’s a delicious meal and your comrades are cackling and singing songs, like a murder of stupider mountain crows.

_When I was hunting mountain goat,_

_I got knocked off my horse._

_The human plucked my arrows up_

_And rode away, of course._

_I got back on my achy feet_

_And cursed my rotten luck,_

_Without my horse to take me back,_

_I knew that I was stuck_

_But from the ground_

_I heard a sound_

_The sentry woke up and looked around_

_It caught the thief_

_Right in its sight_

_And I rode an injured horse back home that night!_

Humans are so puny and weak, brags Din. They’re taller than Din is, you think, but you don’t say anything. Mac says hopefully the Hylian, or human, Zora or Gerudo or whatever it was will come to camp, so it can be killed and looted. You agree. It’s been a while since you had any Rupees, or materials to make new clothes. (Your savings disappeared from your Rupee Hiding Rock a few weeks ago.) But a “nonster” sighting is typically like a shooting star. Rare and meaningless. You’ll probably just talk about humanoids for a couple more days and nothing will come of it.

But that night, you are awakened by the clatter of bones, the unmistakable breathy huffs and roars of the undead. Something fighting it, close by, but out of sight. Luz doesn’t blow the horn, but listens closely, sniffing the air. You can’t smell Malice, or anything but campfire, for that matter, because the breeze is blowing the wrong way.

After the noise dies down, but before you’ve relaxed, a thing passes by the camp, as things seldom do. You’ve never actually seen a Stalmoblin before in all your life, but the distinctive long horn protruding from the bleached white skull lets you know that’s what this is, lumbering through the trees with the uncanny gait of a puppet, or a machine. It’s your size, with only one arm, and though lights shine from its eye sockets, it looks right through your camp, as if it isn’t aware on any higher level. It’s harmless, you know. It’s on your side, like the Stalkoblins you once saw fighting an adventurer, collapsing and reassembling themselves in a vicious frenzy. But there’s something a little unsettling about this one, its mouth without tongue, nose without snout. Abruptly, with a rattle, it disappears into the earth, in a little cloud of dust, leaving you feeling at once alarmed and relieved.

Holy truffles, breathes Zed. Did you see that, Knox?

Go to sleep, you say, it was nothing, just another monster doing its thing. But Mac and Zed are imitating its funny walk, and soon the four of them are chattering, laughing, and singing.

_Have you ever seen a Moblin_

_Leave a roasted goat alone?_

_The only ones who turn down steak_

_Are made out of dried-out bone!_

_Stalkoblins make much nicer guests,_

_They never need to take a rest,_

_They just might be the very best_

_in Ganon’s army, I suggest._

_North, south, east, west,_

_Moblin bones can get possessed!_

_North, south, west, east,_

_Three cheers for the undead beast!_

You’ve never even heard that one before. You have to admit their repertoire is impressive, or their synchrony, if they’re coming up with these on the spot. You have the feeling you’ll be the butt of Stalmoblin jokes for a while.

When things quiet down, you lower yourself back to the ground and relax in the orange light of the campfire and the green light of the glowing bugs, letting the warm crackling and the hushed stories exchanged by your comrades lull you to sleep.

===

You’re usually the first up in the morning, besides whoever’s manning the watchtower (it’s Mac’s turn now). Today is not an exception to that rule, and, also as usual, you have awakened to find yourself ravenously hungry. You take up your prized dragonbone spear and venture into the woods, smelling game on the fresh air. The smells paint a picture of deer, sing a song of wolves, and place the taste of raw bird drumstick in the back of your throat. The forest is alive... and, therefore, delicious.

Stealthy you are not, nor especially cunning, but you compensate for it with raw strength, a good arm, and a good nose, which leads you to a pair of brown speckled deer between the trees. On your first throw, your spear hits home, and you’re bringing venison for breakfast back to camp.

Din is awake by the time you get there, eating what looks to have once been a Hot-Footed Frog. You greet Din and get to work, snacking on raw deer leg, skin and all, so you won’t have to field dress the rest on an empty stomach. You’ll eat most of the entrails, too, and save the bones for weapons, chewing, and even just decoration. You have struck gold today. (The same way you do most days. Food does not last long at your camp.)

Zed gets up and wanders off with a club, mumbling something about looking for travelers to mug. You think Zed hasn’t forgotten about the Hylian. Zed’s funny. Seems to try to one-up you all the time, but it is possible you’re overthinking it and Zed’s just cocky.

When you need a break from venison care, you go back into the woods for a wash in the stream and some exercise. There’s no shortage of thick branches or rocks out here to practice lifting and throwing. You work up a healthy appetite and return to camp, where Din is taking a turn at the watchtower.

Here, throw an apple, says Din, equipping a bow. You go get one from the Apple Holding Crate and toss it underhand at the trees. Din misses, and goes on to miss the next six times you repeat the exercise before finally splitting the apple, which is badly bruised by now. A suitably underwhelming reward for an underwhelming performance. Moving target practice is still an area for improvement for Din, even after all these years. But you’re certainly not in any position to judge, being more of a stationary target enthusiast yourself. You patiently retrieve the arrows from the ground and prepare a lunch to split with your comrades.

During your afternoon rest, Zed returns with an impressive haul of fish, acorns, and tree nuts. Nuts and sometimes even arrows get stored in the Apple Holding Crate, too. You used to complain about that, a long time ago, but after about thirty years of this nonsense you began to reluctantly accept that the name of the crate is meaningless.

Sometimes you like to exercise some more before dinner, but you spend the rest of today working on weapon maintenance while you still have sunlight to work with. It is important to keep your spear in pristine condition in case your humble little camp is ever actually invaded.. or inspected by Ganon himself. Not that you expect that to happen any time soon. Ganon has been trapped in some kind of stalemate for a hundred years. It doesn’t hurt to be prepared, though. (This may come as a shock, but there’s not a whole lot else to do around here.)

It’s venison for dinner. Tough, as always, because you can never afford to spend more than a day preparing it, but anything you can tear off a bone tastes great to you. You don’t understand how Bokoblins can stomach plant matter, even if they are a different species. The idea of eating anything that wasn’t once a moving, breathing creature is a truly repulsive concept.

At dusk, Luz is ready to take another shift on the tower, and Mac is animatedly narrating a story about the dread Staldeer, which is made up, you think. You’re relaxing, picking your teeth with your claw when suddenly Luz blows the horn and draws back an arrow. You jump to your feet, but before you’ve even gotten a grip on your spear, there’s a long, howling scream. Luz has fallen from the tower with an arrow in the head. _Luz!_

Raising a furious shout, you and the remaining three Bokoblins charge forward, Mac releasing arrows, Zed and Din wielding clubs. The trespasser is a humanoid, but this one is a fiercely skilled swordsman. A rising desperation fuels your attacks as first Din, then Zed go down easily. You block the sword with your spear, twice, again, but the third strike knocks it from your hands, out of reach. You get in a few brutal kicks, but the next stroke of the sword sends you flying onto the ground with a roar of pain.

You hear one of Mac’s arrows bury itself harmlessly in the dirt, and before you can pick yourself up, you get stabbed three times with your own spear and are sprawling again.

You and your friends.. you spent your whole lives preparing for this moment, but it came and you were no match...

It takes just two more jabs with the spear to kill you. Almost all of your remains disappear in a puff of shadowy smoke.

==

About a week later, that same smoke appears over your campsite. You and your buddies materialize out of air, finding yourselves together and unharmed in the red light of the blood moon, vivid and renewing. Luz does a little dance from the top of the watchtower that looks like Luz is either overjoyed or experiencing horrible full-body pain, Mac and Zed tackle each other in a celebratory scuffle, Din checks on the supplies, and you can’t help but grin. So it’s really true! You had heard that this was the lot of a slain monster, but it is reassuring to actually experience it for yourself. (Especially after seeing the mindless shuffle of the skeletal Moblin just last night— well. The night before you died. You’ve probably been out for a while.)

You rally your troops, vowing to train harder, grow stronger, build better weapons and practice with them until you all turn silver, Ganon help you, and you will never be overwhelmed like that again. The Bokoblins give a whoop.

Everyone feels energized, so you all begin your harsher training regimen immediately. The Bokoblins spar with tree branches, hold marksmanship competitions, and you find a whole tree you can deadlift with some difficulty and work with it long after your muscles start to burn.

Your whole crew is exhausted by the time the sky is beginning to lighten. Zed volunteers to take the first shift at the watchtower, and Mac offers to stay awake too. You are more than happy to rest, and in the moments of reflection before you drift off, you think that maybe the attack was a good thing. That traveler has challenged this lazy camp, motivated everyone to improve themselves. If he ever comes back, you will be ready. You will thank him for his service, and then you will impale him until he is dead.

===

But it is a little harder to remember to challenge yourselves once the routine has resumed. You haven’t seen the traveler — or any “nonster” — in weeks now, and you haven’t really been seeing any improvement in yourself or your friends. A little more time in every day gets allocated to sleeping, campfire stories, song and dance. Din seems to forget about the plan, which was to continue marksmanship practice until an acorn can take the place of an apple. It still almost always takes at least five tries to hit an apple. You see this happening, and you don’t do anything about it. So you can’t really be blamed any more than the others when they allow a traitor in your midst.

Smells like a Hylian. Looks like a Hylian. Exactly the same size as the Hylian that laid waste to your whole camp not long ago. But it’s wearing a big orange.. Cushioned Helmet Thing, stitched together and adorned with floppy ears and button eyes. The Bokoblins seem fooled. They have been letting it eat and dance at camp with them while you were away. Ha! Not you. You’re not _stupid._

You prove it by snatching your spear and thrusting it at the impostor’s chest, a move you regret immediately. It draws its sword in a flash of brilliant blue like a Guardian’s blast, and when it knocks you to the ground this time, you take comfort in the knowledge that the power of the blood moon will restore you.

But he doesn’t finish you off this time.

Instead, he runs away, and the Bokoblins chase after him for a little while before they’re sure he’s gone, then they return, empty-handed.

You don’t want to talk about what just happened. You don’t know what to say, on account of you’re still processing it, and you also don’t want to talk in general, on account of your deep and painful wounds. You almost wish he’d killed you so you wouldn’t have to recover the natural way, or admit you might have been wrong about the Hylian. You don’t know which is going to be more slow and painful.

Din breaks the silence. _Uh, I think next time we should just—_

You say shut up, Din.


	2. Leader

Your name is Knox, and you are recovering from a clash with a pesky Hylian. You always say something is pesky when you don’t want to say it intimidates you.

It is nightfall, and the Bokoblins are squabbling over something you don’t understand or care about. You rap your trusty dragonbone spear against the Apple Holding Crate. All right, listen up, you say, and wait for all their eyes and ears to be facing you.

(You don’t know exactly when you became the leader. It was probably the same moment they realized you were bigger than them, which could have been the day you met, or yesterday.)

You say you’ve given the incident a lot of thought, and you maintain that the best thing to do is to blow the horn and jump any trespasser on sight, no matter who it is, what it’s wearing, or how it’s acting. Why? Because if you win, you get loot, and if you lose, you’ll just come back with the blood moon. That’s how low the stakes are, you explain. The stakes couldn’t be lower if you shut the stakes in a metal chest, sailed out, and dropped the stakes into the sea. Just have fun and get in fights, you say.

This has convinced them it’s a good idea. So the meeting is adjourned, and Luz climbs up the watchtower for the first night shift, leaving the others to try to remember what they had been arguing about. Leaning on your spear for support, you carefully lower yourself to the ground limb after limb and heave a wheezy sigh.

It felt good to rest the first day, but by now your energy has returned and you’re bored and tired of being in pain. You wish you could go hunting. Surely this is the most injured you have been in years, since the time Luz accidentally shot you in the leg and you fell off a cliff and got trampled by a wild boar and set on fire. But this is all from getting struck once, by the Hylian with the radiant blue blade. There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for a weapon like that.

You spend the night the way you’ve spent the last three: shifting uncomfortably, dreading the coming morning, and generally feeling sorry for yourself. You sleep for only minutes at a time until you awaken at one point to the light of the overhead sun. Mac notices you sitting up and brings you some fish and heron drumsticks. Maybe it won’t be such a bad day.

Feeling up for a walk, you leave your spear behind and venture into the trees. A dragonfly crosses your path, a wary fox keeps its distance, and you can smell the fading trails of larger animals that recently passed this way. You reach up to pick some apples that must have been too high for the Bokoblins. They’ve been keeping you fed, so you may as well return the favor.

Evening seems to arrive too soon, and you make your way back to camp, smelling seared steak long before the roaring fire comes into sight. Zed is on the watchtower, facing away from you. A perfect target. You take one of your apples, wind up, and bean Zed in the back of the head. The screech alerts the other Bokoblins, who jump and look around, but their tension dissolves into laughter when they spot you. You go retrieve the apple and offer it up to Zed as a peace offering, which is reluctantly accepted— oh, nope. Zed stuck the apple on your horn. Hilarious, or the others seem to think so when you shake your head from side to side to no avail. Using your hands, you finally work it free, and toss it into the campfire. This is why they can’t have nice things.

Spirits are running high as you and the rest of the party devour the steaks. Zed and Luz switch places and Din starts a campfire song. They all join in:

 _At the dock, at one o’clock, look out for Awkward Jock,_  
_An Octorok who got a shock while walking down the block._  
_You can talk and you can gawk and mock, but don’t get close,_  
_Or Jock the stocky Octorok will sock you in the nose._  
_Singing hey, hey-o hey-o hey-o hey._  
_Hey, hey-o hey-o hey._

A few more songs and chants later, the blood moon begins to rise, so you watch the sky. A couple of Bokoblins cheer or jump up and down. It feels like something is whispering from all around, reaching for you, engulfing you, reminding you that dark forces beyond your understanding are on your side, protecting and empowering monsterkind to hold dominion over Hyrule. The blood moon is an almost spiritual experience, one that never gets old no matter how many times you witness it— in fact, it’s even more personal now that the blood moon has brought you and your friends back from the dead.

The Bokoblins chat in hushed voices, and you lie down, slowly, feeling much better but still careful. Sleep comes easily, and the next day at dawn, you grab your spear and set off for a morning hunt.

Days go by the way they’re supposed to, and then weeks. On top of a hill, you see another red beam has appeared in the distant sky, but that’s hardly cause for concern because you have no idea what those are. You watch two more blood moons and the third one is approaching when the camp gets its next visitor.

Or visitors, plural. You’re afraid you don’t know how long these two Lizalfos have been at your camp. Lizalfos are only ever as detectable as they want to be; they’re even hard to smell. They just materialized today and said they’re travelers, and they need to rest at your camp for a day or two. You allowed it, but you _are_ wondering whether they had anything to do with the steaks that have been going missing. It’s not that the Bokoblins are too honorable to lie to you, it’s just that you’ve been living with them for decades, and although they have a lot of irritating habits, eating that much extra food has never been one of them.

You ask them what their names are. (You don’t care, but you would like to have the ability to yell at them specifically if the need arises.) They introduce themselves as Syere and Daralla. You say you’re Knox, and these are Din, Luz, and Mac, and Zed’s out pillaging. They ask how long you’ve been camping here, and you can approximate. You say you don’t consider yourselves an independent gang; you serve Ganon. Or, you will, anyway, when he gets back from whatever lollygagging he’s been doing for the past one hundred years.

You don’t know? asks Daralla, exchanging a glance with Syere (they can do that without turning their heads, but it’s still noticeable). You shrug. Daralla tells you a long-winded story about Guardians and Divine Beasts and a princess and a knight, ultimately just explaining the idea of the stalemate you already understood, but with more unnecessary details you don’t care about. If it had been told better, it might have actually been an interesting campfire story, but you don’t like the way Daralla talks to you. It seems intentionally slow and exaggerated, like Daralla think you’re too stupid to keep up. (These measures do admittedly help, because Lizalfos tend to talk fast and have those hissy accents. But it feels condescending, the way Daralla does it.)

Zed returns to camp in time for dinner, gives the Lizalfos a quick sniff, and doesn’t question anything, just recounts anecdotes from the looting excursion with lively supplementary gestures and sound effects. It’s a pointless story, but it’s entertaining, and over the meal, the Lizalfos seem to be laughing _with_ the Bokoblins, not at them. Syere even joins in with some stories from Faron. These strangers might not be such bad company.

A light rain is falling. With a deep yawn, you invite the Lizalfos to spend the night, even though they already invited themselves. They offer to keep watch, because they never sleep. Sure, you say, Luz has earned a break.

Knox, interrupts Luz, if breaks were merit-based, you would never leave the watchtower.

You threaten Luz with bodily harm.

With the Lizalfos sharing guard duty, you lie on the damp ground and get comfortable, savoring the smells and sounds of the rain and the refreshing feel of the cool droplets. Shelter is more of a “nonster” need. For your kind, it’s a luxury, one you personally prefer to do without.

The rain shower is brief, and the sky has cleared up by dawn. Syere and Daralla want to go hunting with you, and you think that’s a great idea. Their speed will come in handy.

One of them wields a boomerang, the other, a bow with fancy Enemy-Freezing Arrows that turn the mountain goat you were stalking into a statue. You can’t contain your excitement as you run up to sniff at it and lift it off the ground. You’re so curious about how an ice goat tastes, you can’t resist tearing off a bite to try right here where it fell. Frosted over with tiny crystals, the meat is crispy, cold, and makes you shiver. A stream of drool pours down your jaw, but you convince yourself to take it back to camp before you eat it all here.

You ask how long the steak will stay like this. Indefinitely, they say, or until acted upon by another form of magic. You make a noise of surprise, eyes widening. Imagine— actually storing food. The Lizalfos won’t tell you where they got all the ice arrows, though. They’re dismissive, only saying there are a few methods. You think somebody needs to tell them they can answer a simple question without jeopardizing their species’ reputation for being mysterious.

Daralla wants to stay and forage for insects, so you and Syere go back to camp to divide up the frozen spoils of your hunt. Din greets you from the watchtower, Luz is fashioning a new spear, and the others must be away, eating lunch somewhere else. They’re missing out, you think, eating so fast you get a headache. Luz and Din crunch away at their portions with equal enthusiasm.

After lunch, they commemorate the meal with a familiar rhyme about a Lizal archer.

 _There was a Blue Lizalfos,_  
_And his name was Blazin’ Bill._  
_He would steal the Fire Arrows_  
_From the Lynel up the hill._  
_Did he do it for the Rupees?_  
_Did he do it for the thrill?_  
_I can’t tell you how he took them,_  
_Was it luck or was it skill?_  
_Did they force old Bill to go,_  
_Or was it by his own free will?_  
_Either way, he made a living,_  
_He could always eat his fill._  
_And I know I’d never try it_  
_But I think he does it still._  
_Goes and steals the Fire Arrows_  
_From the Lynel up the hill._

Mac and Zed come back with a few skull-on-a-stick puppets, making them peek around the tree trunks, trying to scare you. Thoroughly unamused, you throw a leftover frozen steak at them, and they drop the act to investigate and snack on it. They’ve brought some small carcasses and crabs for the stash.

The five of you run through some training exercises, propping the skull puppets up and throwing spears at them, swinging and jabbing at each other with unsharpened sticks, the crack of makeshift spear against makeshift shield. Syere doesn’t give any indication that that duo is leaving today, but there should still be enough leftovers between all of you for a substantial dinner. Then, Daralla appears, dragging another frozen goat, ensuring no one will go hungry tonight.

After dinner, Syere asks if any of you have thought about seeing Hyrule.

Nah, answer Din and Mac, in unison. You’ve all been stationed at this camp, explains Mac, by orders of a disembodied Ganon-voice, long ago.

This isn’t where you need to be anymore, says Daralla, and a couple of the Bokoblins tilt their heads. It’s the middle of nowhere, explains Daralla. Ganon couldn’t care less about this camp.

He obviously did, you counter, or you wouldn’t be stationed here, now, would you?

Syere says it’s not about the camp, it’s about the precedent. The idea of gangs of deadly monsters lurking in the wilderness was meant to discourage Hyruleans from straying too far from their roads and villages.

Zed snorts. Hyruleans?

Yes, says Syere, slowly, you know, like, non-monsters. Syere asks what Zed calls them.

Zed laughs. Nonsters, of course, because monsters are Hyruleans, too.

Syere says anyway. Ganon’s nemesis, Link, has returned from his hundred-year slumber, and he’s already hacking his way through every one of Ganon’s defenses, so the precedent no longer matters. The individual it was meant to discourage most is ignoring the threat of monsters. So, if you really want to be useful, it’s time for a different approach.

What approach is that, you ask. The Bokoblins have become distracted, throwing random pieces of trash in the campfire to watch them burn and hollering about it.

The Lizalfos invite you to join them on their mission. They’re going to rally every monster they can and form an army at Hyrule Castle to provide backup for the Guardians and destroy Link once and for all. What’ll it be, they ask. Will you stay here, fighting a battle that’s already lost? Or will you go with them and help save Ganon?

The Bokoblins are getting riled up, jumping up and down and beating their weapons on stuff, but you just scoff. Ganon doesn’t need saving.

That’s where you’re wrong, insists Daralla. Link’s power cannot be underestimated, and if he succeeds in destroying Ganon, that would be the end of the blood moon, the Malice, and his hold on the kingdom. You will no longer be able to hunt Hyruleans for sport, or do anything like that without consequence, if Link has his way.

What is Link, anyway, you grumble.

A Hylian, is the answer. You gulp. Oh. You have the distinct feeling you’ve met before.

Don’t you want to defeat Link, on a personal level? Don’t you want revenge for the thrashing he gave your camp?

What’ll it be?

The Bokoblins are looking at you expectantly.

You take a deep breath. And you say all right. You’ll go.


	3. Camp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the illustrated chapter.

Your name is Knox, and you’re leaving.

This morning, you and your Bokoblin comrades are abandoning your little camp to join Syere and Daralla’s army outside Hyrule Castle. There wasn’t much to pack, and you aren’t leaving much behind, either. The sun is rising, and the fire has been extinguished. The watchtower is unmanned, the Apple Holding Crate is empty, and the Weapon Leaning Log no longer has any weapons leaning on it. There is nothing more to do here. It’s time to go.

You turn your back on the empty camp and follow the party out to the northwest.

The Lizalfos lead you through open fields, alive with foxes and insects darting away from you, and quiet historic sites where pillars slowly crumble and mossy Guardian remains lie half-buried like Leviathan bones. When the path takes you along a riverbank, the Lizalfos jump in and swim. The group is mostly silent at first, but for the sounds of weapons and shields sliding and clattering together with every step. This is still a familiar area, where you sometimes come hunting and exploring. And this time, you’re traveling in a large group, well-armed. Still, you feel oddly vulnerable heading for the unknown.

The Bokoblins don’t share this reverence, at least not for long. By noon, they are leaping around, pushing each other, and singing:

 _Seventeen Electric Keese_  
_Were swooping in the moonlight,_  
_They vamoosed and stopped to roost_  
_To hide from afternoonlight._  
_But one small Keese disturbed the peace_  
_With one enormous squeak,_  
_They left the den to fly again_  
_Above the highest peak, and they sang_  
_In the dark, the shepherd barks,_  
_The Moblin swipes a sheep,_  
_And if we never settle down,_  
_We’ll never get to sleep—_

Thankfully, before the song runs its natural course, Din spots some Spicy Pepper bushes, and they all hoot with excitement, running over to squabble over the peppers and snarf them down. They snort, screech, and jump around like they’ve swallowed Fire Chuchus, but keep eating while you, Syere, and Daralla look on.

Syere asks how anyone could willingly eat anything so repulsive. Daralla agrees: it’s pure botanical garbage. Yeah, you say, you won’t even use that stuff to “season” meat. It just makes it taste worse. Daralla’s tongue flicks out to swab one glowing eye as Syere points out that you’d say the same about butterflies, too, wouldn’t you? and you nod. Lizalfos can have those nasty things. But now they’re judging _you._ It’s almost a pity you don’t have another Moblin to back you up, except for the fact that you don’t care about this at all.

With the bushes plucked bare, it’s time to keep moving. Monster camps lie abandoned here, here too, over there, empty as the skulls that adorn them, but you don’t meet any other monsters to talk with.

Between the Dueling Peaks, you jump a human traveler, who is outnumbered and falls after taking just a few hits and yelling just a few things that might have been insulting coming from someone who matters. Sniffing over it thoroughly, you are disappointed to find it didn’t even have any food on it. What a waste of time. You drop a rock on the fallen human for good measure and go plunge your snout in the water for a drink before wiping your chin on your elbow and continuing on with the others.

The party stops to rest at a monster camp built in a spiral around a tree, and you head out with your posse to hunt dinner: a wild goat that was stupid enough to try to charge you and a water buffalo the Bokoblins caught by surprise. You’re so hungry, you have to stop and tear away one of the buffalo legs to eat raw, and the others (even though they’ve had plenty of fruit) jump on this as an opportunity to eat, too. They clean the goat’s skeleton in minutes, like Skullfish, and are beginning to pose a threat to the buffalo before you remind them (by gently bludgeoning them with the side of your spear) they need to save some for the Lizalfos.

On your way back with the remainder of the spoils, a small herd of horses catches Din’s eye. Din and Mac run over to try to tame them like idiots, ignoring your protests. They don’t even get close enough to get kicked before the horses raise a whinny and take off. It’s for the best. Most Bokoblins don’t try to tame wild horses so much as steal them from travelers and stables. There are four good reasons for this, and all four of them are hooves.

Din and Mac catch back up, complaining, and you tell them you told them so the whole way back. (You tell them you told them so a lot, and they never learn. You wouldn’t think it, on account of their huge ears, but Bokoblins are terrible listeners.)

Syere and Daralla split the rest of the food, and you go right to your post and you lie down on the wood plank floor without time for story or song. Like those busy days after your first resurrection, tonight feels too important; you need to rest up for the next leg of the journey. You close your eyes, feeling the whole fort creak and shift gently with footsteps of monsters on other levels, or the slight movements of the big old tree. You wake up a few times in the night, but reposition yourself and get back to sleep before you can complain.

Before dawn, you prepare to leave without breakfast, but Syere surprises you with a heap of fish from the river. It must be nice, never sleeping and having all that extra time, you say, but Syere says Lizalfos compensate for it by micro-sleeping regularly. Isn’t that right, Daralla? asks Syere, giving Daralla a wake-up shove. _What— yes!_

Most of the day is a long wade through tall, whispering green grass, with the warm sun at your backs. You pass more ruins, with Guardians. Some are dead, some active. Others are somewhere in between, overgrown and sinking tilted into the earth but still glowing and producing a low grinding sound when you walk close. _Stalguardians._

The castle is concentrated with Malice; you can see the shimmer from here, living darkness and pulses of light. And there’s a pool of it close by. You smell it before you see it. Malice has a chemical smell, sweet, zesty, dark, multi-layered, enticing and threatening all at once, the kind of smell that feels like flowers in your snout but fire in your throat, makes you wish you could entertain the thought of burying your nose in it without suffering the consequences.

As you walk by, trying not to inhale too deeply, Din and Zed get a little too close. You growl at them, a warning. Stay back.

Ganon’s Malice is important — it’s instrumental to the blood moon, after all — but it’s still a deadly poison. Not only can it kill most weaker animals quickly, but exposure over time will even corrupt a monster. You’ve heard many stories passed monster to monster, and each one ends in a warning.

Now you smell… smoke, monsters, food... a camp? You close your mouth and tilt your ears, listening to the sound of a crowd up ahead. Over the hill, you see it, and instantly feel at home again.

The field is bustling with Bokoblins, Moblins, and Lizalfos of all colors, gathered around campfires, wandering around in small groups, working on makeshift structures, chipping away at spears and clubs, talking, sparring, laughing. You see a cavalry of Bokoblins on horseback, even a small crew of Bokoblins tending to... bears?

Din and Luz yell about it and run down the hill, with Mac and Zed close behind. One of them trips and tumbles the rest of the way. You don’t speed up, content to take in the view of the grounds from here.

Proudly, Daralla says a few other monsters joined before you. You call that an understatement. It’s encouraging to think that most of the abandoned camps you passed along the way weren’t cleared out by Link— the monsters probably just moved here.

Syere and Daralla break from the party as you regroup at the bottom of the hill. Some other Bokoblins have come forward to welcome the new arrivals with exotic fruit. They’re all stuffing themselves with wildberries, mighty bananas, and hydromelon, eating with such voracious zeal that juice isn’t just dripping down, but _splashing up_ with every snap of their wide, toothy jaws. (Do bananas even _have_ juice? Maybe some of that is saliva...)

You stray from your omnivorous friends, assuring yourself you won’t get lost, and approach a dwindling fire where some Lizalfos are preparing seared rhinoceros steak and smoked moose ribs. They offer to share if you bring them some more fuel, and that seems like a trade that unfairly benefits you, so you’re in.

You walk up the hill and uproot a small tree with a trunk that fits nicely in your hands. You shake it and beat excess dirt clods out of the roots before hauling the whole thing back down the hill in the dim light of dusk. Back at the camp, you prop it up and they help strip off the branches and cut the trunk into smaller pieces to feed the fire. It hisses and pops as they prod it with a blackened spear that appears to have been set aside for this purpose. Finally satisfied with the work, they sit back down, and one of them serves you your reward.

The moose is perfectly done; you barely have to chew it, and as for the rhinoceros--! It’s enough to make you seriously consider moving to a camp up north, where you could have this every day. You don’t save any leftovers. If the Bokoblins want to try it, they can earn their own somehow.

Another Lizalfos (who seems to know the others) returns to camp for the night, and another. They chatter in sandpapery voices, so rapidly it sounds like another language. (You make out something about a mutual acquaintance getting stung by an insect, and it must not be a well-respected acquaintance, because they find it hilarious.) You can’t really participate in this. And you don’t want to overstay your welcome, so you take your leave and look for the Bokoblins.

They’re still close by, but they really seem to have hit it off with the Bokoblin welcoming party. The silver one is leading the others in a lively, obnoxious call-and-response song they already started without you.

_...(No, no!) But was he still hungry? (Yeah, yeah!) So did he give up? (No, no!) And we’ll get louder? (Yeah, yeah!)_

_A Hinox was trying to eat the moon,_  
_His stomach was empty, the moon was full,_  
_He picked up a Pebblit and sang a tune,_  
_And he hurled it up into the sky, the sky._

_And did he strike it? (No, no, no!) But was he still hungry? (Yeah, yeah, yeah!) So did he give up? (No, no, no!) And we’ll get louder? (Yeah, yeah, yeah!)_

You wander off alone. Maybe you could fit in with members of your own species. There’s a well-established camp with about five or six Moblins lounging around a fire, but you gravitate to a lone Moblin who’s going around from camp to camp like a courser bee visiting flowers. What’s that all about?

He’s collecting arrows, he tells you. He has been doing this every night, as Syere and Daralla instructed. They’re building a big stockpile. You can help, too.

So he directs you to some groups he hasn’t been to yet today, and you meander from camp to camp to tell monsters to cough up extra arrows for the stash. Some don’t want to spare any, and you let them slide. You never know when a trespasser— when _Link_ could show up, and archers without arrows are as good as Keese without wings.

You linger a little bit at each camp, sniff noses with the equestrian Bokoblins’ horses, stay and visit in the firelight with a group of monsters who had a clash with Link at Hateno Beach. He killed all of them, too. You feel a sense of solidarity.

When you reach the Boko convention, your four Bokoblins heckle you and give you grief about your apparent promotion to errand boy. You fire back by threatening to put thirty arrows in each of them, demonstrating how you’re the most-armed Moblin in the encampment now. They shriek and howl with laughter like coyotes. You need to keep going, so you exchange see-you-laters and depart.

As you walk to the last camp, a patrolling Guardian comes lumbering at impressive speed on long, spidery legs, whizzing and beeping, knocking loudly against crates and forcing monsters to clear out of its way as it makes its rounds. Guardians are valuable allies. Even as it violently disrupts the camps, it is greeted with cheering and celebration.

The other Moblin shows you to the outskirts of the encampment, away from the warm fires, where you see by moonlight. He has been filling a large cart with arrows over here. It’s almost completely full, hundreds, thousands? You’ve never seen a fraction of this many arrows in one place. For the first time, it really feels like you are a part of something important. They look tidy and straight, all facing the same direction, so you take extra care to add yours accordingly.

As a pack of Keese flies silhouetted against the waxing moon, you head back towards the center of the camp with the other Moblin. He says his name is Pete, and he lives in a ruin not far from here. You tell him your name, and all about your camp as he leads you to a small base he’s set up, with roasted fish on stakes around a fire. You take one without waiting for Pete to offer it to you (Moblins don’t consider that rude). It tastes overcooked, but still pretty good. He lies back in the grass and eats one in two bites, bones and all. The two of you swap stories of your adventures late into the night.

The murmur and hum of the other camps never goes completely silent. You don’t resent that, though; it’s even kind of a pleasant white noise, like Restless Crickets or the rain. When you close your eyes, you don’t open them again until morning.

As soon as you’re up, Pete invites you on a combination hunt and supply run. You get your spear and spend most of the day out tracking familiar game in unfamiliar wilderness together, cornering larger prey, checking in with various camps to see what supplies are most needed, collecting fruit for the Bokoblins and wood for the fires, sticks for spears and feathers for arrows, and eating plenty of snacks between your excursions.

You feel useful and proud of yourself and Pete, like Ganon would approve of you. But you’re far from the only ones working hard. There are others out hunting and gathering, and in the field, monsters are running large-scale drills to practice conducting themselves as an army and not just small, individual bands of lugs. The common monsters take orders from the Boko cavalry and the strongest monsters. But, apparently, even they defer to Syere and Daralla. This whole thing must have been their idea, you think. They must have spied on someone to learn of this threat to Ganon’s power. How were you supposed to know Ganon had a nemesis?

Not tonight, but tomorrow night is the blood moon, so many monsters are also organizing an encampment-wide celebration. They want plenty of food, and targets set up for competitions. Before you and Pete can venture back out to find some, a Fire-Breath Lizalfos scurries up to you and gives you some roasted Eldin ostrich legs as compensation for one of the odd jobs you did this morning (you don’t remember which). So you take a break to scarf them down and fight over the last one.

That night, after you and Pete gather things from the wilderness for the party and more arrows from the camps for the cart, you both join the big Bokoblin camp for a song or two. It’s Octorok Jock (Extended Version) and another:

 _Apples and palm fruit and wildberry jam,_  
_Serve it with porgy, coyote, and lamb._  
_Voltfruit from desert where cactuses grow,_  
_Moose and rhinoceros shot in the snow._  
_Others may wander and wear out their feet,_  
_Looking for something exotic to eat._  
_Do I go all over Hyrule? I do not._  
_I steal it from travelers who pass by this spot._

Pete shares a spooky campfire story with you and the Boko gathering, about six Bokoblin mooks who lived in a ruin not far from here. They began to forget things, refused food, no longer responded to their names, started wandering off in the moonlight, and they picked up this strange habit of digging in the dirt and staring at it for long periods of time without moving.

Malice? one of the Bokoblins guesses, and Pete nods. All six of them wasted away into Stalkoblins. Even when they died, the blood moon would raise them the same way. That’s the story of what happened to his gang.

Monsters aren’t predisposed to care very much for friendship — all monsters have a strong unwritten truce, after all. Friends are replaceable. But you and the extended Bokoblin camp still share a solemn moment of acknowledgement.

You are the dominant creatures over Hyrule, the top of the food chain, so you have nothing to fear from the day or night. Thanks to the blood moon, you don’t even fear death. Undeath, however, can effectively destroy a monster, and no amount of tongue-in-cheek Stalmoblin songs can make that one vulnerability any more palatable.

You and Pete are too tired to go back to your own camp for the night, or that’s what you agree is the reason you’re still here. It’s not like you _enjoy_ the stupid company of these rowdy little runts or anything.

==

You’re the first of the group to rise in the morning, but several monsters are already making progress setting up for the blood moon festivities, raising flags, roping off sections of field. You whack Pete with the non-business end of your spear, and he jumps up with an angry noise. Come on, you say, let’s get to work!

Where’s breakfast, Pete growls. Probably alive somewhere, you answer, and it’s time to go do something about that!

As you turn to go, you notice another red beam has appeared in the sky to meet the others at the castle.

Whatever that means.

_**TO BE CONTINUED** _


	4. Endgame

You are a member of a legion of monsters who have abandoned their camps to assemble in a field before the castle. Any day now, Ganon’s nemesis might arrive, and you will stop him in his tracks. But tonight, you have other things to do.

Your name is KNOX, and you have spent the day helping prepare a blood moon celebration. All your hard work is about to pay off. As a red sliver edges over the horizon, the whole army erupts with cheers and howling.

The night is off to a strong start. Packs of Bokoblins sing rowdy songs, dancing and beating on shields with spears and clubs like drumsticks. Some monsters are shooting down barrels suspended from Octo balloons; they spring forward in a mad scramble to devour the fruit and blackened fish that spill out. When you start to get bored, you and Pete have a sparring match, crashing throwaway weapons against each other in exaggerated motions to the delight of monsters gathering around. (Zed tries to interfere by throwing acorns at you.) Before either one of you can win, monsters start splitting off your group. Where are they going? Pete turns to look, and you see they’re going to watch the Bokoblin cavalry race. Pete’s still looking away, so you pretend to sneakstrike him (he falls with a mock bellow) and the two of you go find a place to stand.

The monsters line a roped-off, torchlit area where the horses are taking their positions. You let some spectators go in front of you because you can see over them and you also don’t care about this race. You don’t know any of the Bokoblin riders. You are mostly just hoping to see something funny happen. Maybe a Bokoblin will get thrown, or somebody or something mauled by a bear. A stampede? Someone going the wrong way? The possibilities are endless when the competitors are this stupid.

But it’s a short race, and the jockeys are apparently too capable for any mishaps, at least this time. A silver Bokoblin on a peachy-colored horse wins. The race is followed by what must have been intended as a mock joust, but the structured contest dissolves into a chaotic display of horseback stunts.

By now, Ganon’s power is approaching its glorious peak. You can feel the familiar presence of something stirring, descending over and creeping up all around you at once as the moon, little by little, approaches the center of the sky. A living dark magic rises with the moon, strengthening and restoring the spirits of monsters all over Hyrule, and striking fear into the hearts of everyone else.

Pete approaches you with a fake sneakstrike of his own and asks if you’re ready for the nightly arrow harvest. You look around and take a deep breath. It seems almost like too much of an ordeal; the festivities have the encampment much messier and less structured than it usually is. But you’ll probably still be able to scrape up a few for the cart, and it’s not like you have anything better to do. You say why not. As you walk from group to group, you make idle conversation with the monsters, mostly about the blood moon.

A big group of Black Moblins from the Eldin region say they have some fire arrows for the stockpile, but the tips look normal to you. They’re fire arrows, one of the Moblins insists. You... guess you’ll take the Moblin’s word for it.

You ask the monsters running the Octorok game if they have any arrows to spare, but they’ve been losing too many, they say. So you leave them alone... although you’re wondering what they would do if you threw a Bokoblin and hit the barrel. You think maybe you could.

A pair of Lizalfos who finish each other’s sentences tell you they heard you can change where you respawn! Yes, if you’ve lived somewhere else long enough, you’ll start to come back there when the blood moon rises instead. That’s what they heard, so they’re thinking about moving to the Gerudo region now. Er— what did you ask them, again? Arrows, right. Sure, take a handful. Take some boar, while you’re at it; there’s enough to go around. (You take enough that they probably won’t say that to anyone else.)

A wild-eyed Bokoblin suggests the blood moon brings back other animals, too. What if you’ve been eating the same three or four deer your whole life!?? You snort and dismiss this ridiculous idea. That’s enough Bright-Eyed Crab for tonight, genius, better stop now before you uncover another secret of the universe.

There are fewer arrows tonight, on account of the party, but you meet up with Pete and agree you’re probably good until tomorrow. The two of you go take them to the cart, heaped with arrows, and find Syere there, watching the moonrise alone. Syere asks if one of you could do a favor. 

Sure, you say, waving Pete on and asking if Syere and Daralla want you to start another cart. No, says Syere. Are they leaving soon to recruit more monsters, you ask. These numbers are impressive, but there’s bound to be more out there willing to join forces...

It’s not about the numbers, says Syere. Most monsters are useless against Link; he charges right through them on his horse and swats them like insects. If numbers were all they had, they wouldn’t stand a chance. It’s about these.

The arrow is smeared with a shifting, inky substance that pulses with purple and red light, seems to be enveloped by its own shadow, sends red sparks drifting up from it like a bonfire in the wind. You can feel the smell of sweet poison on your tongue.

Malice-tipped arrows.

Your jaw drops, but you snap it shut and exhale quickly, hoping not to ingest too much of the stuff. You look from Syere to the cart full of arrows.

Armed with these, says Syere, an army of monsters becomes something different. Something impenetrable...

You sputter. Something.. something slowly poisoning itself from the inside!

Syere carefully returns the abomination to its quiver, saying Stal monsters aren’t quite as good for heavy lifting, but they’re still pretty useful with bows.

Oh, you get it, Syere’s one of those _ends-justify-the-means_ villains, you scoff.

Whose side are you on, Syere rasps. Don’t you understand what’s at stake?

You say you saw a Stalmoblin not too long ago, so you understand very well.

It’s not that bad, says the Lizalfos. You’d only lose a few grams of gray matter. You might even feel smarter afterwards.

Syere, you growl, you’ve had it up to here with the snide little insults. You get it, Syere thinks Lizalfos are so much better than Moblins. Well, they’re— they’re... not.

That wasn’t a strong rebuttal, so you’re a little surprised when Syere admits that you’re right and looks away, out over the scattered bonfires, glowing behind the silhouettes of monsters dancing, monsters relaxing, monsters holding skirmishes. You all serve Ganon, Syere says finally, and isn’t that really what matters?

Yeah, you say, so in the name of Ganon, and all that is good and unholy, let’s put our differences behind us and forget about this arrow thing.

Someone else can go curse them, says Syere, if you’re too scared to take the cart to the pool of Malice. 

Syere must not understand. You gesture “no” with your arms, explaining that you don’t care who dips the arrows; they shouldn’t be dipped at all. It’s stupid to arm so many monsters with an addictive, deadly substance. That’s why nobody uses those. It’s a bad idea.

It’s for the greater cause! argues Syere, growing impatient again. No expense can be spared. You don’t _know_ Link like Syere does.

Well, you say, Link visited your camp twice, wounded you once, and killed you once, so you’re pretty sure you do, actually.

Syere laughs, keeps laughing, a little too long. FOOL. In the Lizalfos’ glowing eyes, you see shifting darkness, pulses of red and glowing purple. You take a step back. You had never detected corruption in Syere before, but Lizalfos are always so hard to smell...

The blood moon is now directly overhead. The Lizalfos shudders, giving off red sparks and clouds of smoky purple, and roars up at the sky, commands you to obey your lord. Syere isn’t in there anymore. You freeze as it dawns on you: Ganon is in the Malice. Ganon whispers from the fragrant sludge, invites every corrupted monster to its doom. Ganon pulls the strings on the pale, rattling skeletons. Ganon has a request for you.

Every bone in your body urges you to kneel. But your brain, your Moblin Guts, and whatever shriveled heart you have to speak of are seething with defiance. Yes, you owe Ganon everything. He is your king, and, effectively, your god. But the realization that he and his Malice are one and the same hasn’t made Malice any less frightening. It just gives you something to resent about Ganon. Something to _hate_ about Ganon.

You stare at him, the demon lord looking out from the face of a small Lizalfos, imprisoned by its frame, barely contained. You take a deep breath, and you say okay, boss. You narrow your eyes, pull your tongue into your mouth, and turn away to stalk back towards camp.

Syere was loyal to a fault, but you’re not like that. You only serve Ganon because there’s something in it for you. You fight for the blood moon, and because as long as Ganon has dominion over Hyrule, monsters can do whatever they want. And now, he expects you to play along, while he risks your autonomy and your friends for just one extra, probably-unnecessary layer of defense. He must think you’re really stupid.

You stop at the nearest camp and snatch up an unfinished spear, holding it in the fire until it catches. Maybe he’s right.

You run back up to the cart overflowing with arrows, throw the fire, and bolt.

==

In moments, Syere-Ganon is after you. A hissing Malice arrow flies just over your shoulder. What were you thinking? _Well, at least he can run out of arrows. Probably._

You reach the bottom of the hill, turning just in time to catch him mid-pounce and bat him with your forearm, sending him flying. Ganon must be skilled in combat on a level you can’t even hope to approach, but right now, you’re bigger than he is. You’re stronger than he is. And you are _desperate_ to keep Malice out of your bloodstream.

You grab a stray pot lid and block the next shot. A struggle ensues, with a furious Lizalfos-Ganon trying to destroy your makeshift shield without wasting another arrow, and you trying to save the shield by absorbing the non-toxic hits (and ONLY the non-toxic hits!) with your body.

He fights with the quick, lurching style typical of Lizalfos, darting zigzag smooth as liquid across the ground and then instantly popping upright to ready an arrow or leap at you. You wish you hadn’t left your spear at Pete’s camp. You can only punch and kick him, grab him to throw or slam on the ground for him to get right back up again, unfazed.

At last, you manage to grab his bow from him and break it— but now he tries to stab you with the arrow, so you have to focus your energy on his arm and keeping it away from you as you roll around in the grass. Once, the poisoned tip scrapes lightly across your chest, leaving a trail of lumpy, corrupted goop on your hide that feels somehow both hot and cold. It makes you angry.

You attempt to pin the Lizalfos to the ground, but he slithers away from your grasp and behind you. You whirl around to stop him from stabbing you, blocking him with the pot lid and shoving him off of you to get on your feet. It was a risky move, to try to tackle him. But it might be the only way to end this.

As you and your foe circle each other, the wind changes, wafting the scent of venison smoke directly into your snout. It reminds you of home. Takes you back to hunting in the woods.

You’re still in that mindset as you lunge for him again. You find that thinking of Syere-Ganon as your prey lets you fight more aggressively. The poison arrow is no longer a threat, but his only defense against you. A rhinoceros horn, the stinger of some lowly insect. Just dodge the arrow and you’ll get your kill.

You tackle him and hold his arrow arm against the ground and strangle him with the other hand until the look of a shadow creeps over his body. In a poof of smoke, he disappears, leaving behind a horn and a single talon. The arrow has vanished with him.

You throw back your head and laugh triumphantly before you realize how many monster eyes and weapons are pointed at you.

They don’t know what you just prevented.

From where they’re standing, one of the new guys just marched up and broke the sacred Unspoken Monster Peace Treaty to assassinate their commander.

Uh...

Oops?

You close your mouth, tongue poking out one side, and stand up. You need to explain yourself, but you’re still in your combat headspace and you can’t find the words to articulate what just happened.

Instead, you try proclaiming yourself the new leader!

It doesn’t go over very well.

In the instant before the charging mob reaches you, something sharp digs deep into your side. You’d guess it was a spear from how huge it feels, but when you look down, you just see a regular arrow--

And then you’re just trying to beat monsters away from you for as long as you can. It seems like they’re fighting each other, too. Maybe you have sympathizers. Not that it matters. You stopped Syere, so you don’t care if you die. You’ll just come back, you think, as you fall forward.

Something drives through your back and out your front, and gets yanked out again. _That_ was definitely a spear.

You close your eyes with a growl of pain and exhaustion, knowing you’ll open them again at your camp, back at home.

===

You do. From the swirling smoke around you, you can tell your Bokoblins must be respawning, too. They must have died in the chaos.. You enjoyed the time you spent at the camp; it’s a shame the whole thing probably went— _!!!_

Pain, and freezing cold, and you can’t move until you’re on the ground, getting hacked to death with a boomerang, hearing Bokoblins screaming

===

Again, you find yourself upright and unscathed with your friends, _briefly._ An arrow to the head makes you stagger back and fall, blinded, into the range of an enemy’s sword. You don’t stand up again.

===

You see them this time. A whole big group of monsters. They’re camping your camp. Ambushing you and— _aarugh!_ your whole crew, every— time you—

===

You always wake up unarmed, so you can’t defend yourself from this. How will you— _ugghh..._ You fall, and catch a glimpse of a fallen Mac vanishing into smoke before an enemy Moblin blocks your view and raises a dragonbone club.

===

You roar and kick desperately, actually making contact with a Lizalfos this time, but are felled by arrows. Somebody or a group of somebodies finishes you off with a heavy club, keeping you down. It’s what you expected.

===

Months are passing, you realize with horror. You’re dead for weeks at a time. Beginning— again— very soon. You struggle in vain against the blows from various weapons. There’s nothing you can do when you’re unarmed and outnumbered like this.

===

It was months ago that you tried rhinoceros, met Pete, killed Syere. Surely they’ll get tired of this eventually-- _khh!_

===

You try to run, yelling for the Bokoblins to do the same— an arrow hits your neck and the ground comes up to hit your face, and then they are upon you.

===

Run and get help, you repeat. Find— You’re stabbed in the back, again, again, again

===

Is this your life now? It’s torture... No, you have to fight back. You fight back every time. You never even kill one.

===

You would like to say you eventually used the skipping time to your advantage to coordinate an effective resistance. That would make for a cooler story. But instead, it seems to go on for another lifetime, until you respawn one blood moon to find, even though you’re surrounded by the sounds of a chaotic struggle, you’re alone. You have time. Time to collect your bearings (and your spear).

A flash of light, and two enemy Moblins are convulsing in a cloud of electricity.

_The Hylian!_

You forget all about being stuck in a death and respawn loop and go after Link. The enemy monsters are ignoring you, too. You don’t know where your friends are but they’re probably--

You don’t even know what hit you when you’re sent flying. Everyone else seems to have either changed positions or died in the last instant. But whatever just happened, you’re still holding your spear, so you pick yourself up to charge Link again. There’s... suddenly someone else there? And Link’s gone? You swear you just saw a glowing Rito, who disappeared, and there was a gust of—

Multiple arrows to the head, but it’s the shockwave from Link’s landing and one more blow that finally kills you.

===

Smoke, and... silence. For the first time in a while.

You swing your head to look from side to side, sniffing the air as you cautiously go to pick up your spear, but it’s just you, Mac, Luz, Din, and Zed, all of them surveying the surroundings, sniffing and swiveling their ears. Din charges into the woods, and you tense up, but Din clearly doesn’t find anything and comes running back.

What _happened,_ Mac asks, finally.

You have no idea. You let out a breath you’ve been holding and say you... guess the other monsters died and came back somewhere else? Fighting Link sure is confusing.

Everyone inches closer towards the fire. You keep throwing glances at the dark trees.

Did you really kill Syere, asks Din. Why?

Yeah, you say. Syere’s crazy.

The Bokoblins seem content with this answer. You look up at the blood moon, and then down. Malice, on your chest-- still there? You have to kind of look at an angle so your snout doesn’t get in the way. No, it’s gone. But there’s a scar. Even after you’ve regenerated so many times. Ominous.

No one wants to sing. No one wants to hunt. No one even wants to sleep. You’re all just standing around, staring blankly at the fire.

You know what!? you announce, finally. Forget it!

The Bokoblins tilt their heads. You’re moving, you say. You need a change of scenery. You’re all going to go live somewhere else, and you’re leaving right now.

They stare at you for just one beat before leaping around in excitement and scrambling to gather what materials they can.

===

The rain seems to be letting up.

Good. That was a violent storm last night, with thunder fit to raise a sleeping Hinox. But the fresh ocean breeze is a calm one, just enough to keep the warm sun from uncomfortably scorching your hide as it gently dries tonight’s firewood.

Your name is Knox, and you live at a camp with your old friends Din, Zed, Luz, Mac, and two local island-dwellers, Taj and Tip.

The island isn’t a bad place. There are frequent tropical storms, it’s true, but your whole party has come to weather them well. You eat a lot of seafood, supplemented with the occasional mountain goat or water buffalo, and it’s good. Thanks to the Bokoblins, there’s never really a dull moment, just a lot of stupid ones. There are approximately fifty percent more stupid moments than there used to be. And you know what? You wouldn’t have it any other way.

You still think about your adventure, every once in a while. The blood moon reminds you of that night. You don’t know if Syere was okay, or too corrupted to respawn with skin and organs intact. You don’t know who ordered your sabotage. Probably Daralla? You don’t know if Daralla knew Syere was corrupted. You don’t know what Pete’s up to, or if they ever tried to start another army to meet Link, or whether anyone has tried to make the poison arrows again. You don’t know if Ganon’s mad at you, either, but you figure he has bigger problems. It’s not even close to the blood moon, anyway. Why are you thinking about this. You are far away from the ramifications now.

You relax and distract yourself with thoughts of blackened crab until Luz blows the alert horn. Probably another false alarm-- No, it’s real! You see it. There’s seriously a nonster on the island, running barefoot, without any... shirt??

Rising to your feet, you take up your spear. It’s gonna be another one of those days.

And somewhere on the mainland, a band of monsters are singing.

_I’ve heard songs of daring heroes,_  
 _And of unrelenting foes,_  
 _Stories tell of careful leaders,_   
_But a monster’s none of those_

_There once was a monster who called himself Knox,_   
_As tall as a Moblin but sly as a fox,_   
_A powerful ally as any might think,_   
_But he sabotaged Ganon, then went after Link._

_The camp was in ruins, the field was all in flames_   
_Forgotten were songs, contests, stories, meals, and games,_   
_It hasn’t been tried since it failed so long ago,_   
_If Link was in danger, he’ll surely never know._

_Bokoblins are reckless and Moblinkind are strong,_   
_Lizalfos as cunning as lizard-tongues are long,_   
_But even with Luz, Din, Daralla, Knox, and Pete,_   
_A Triforce of Monsters can never be complete._

_I’ve heard songs of daring heroes,_  
 _And of unrelenting foes,_  
 _Stories tell of careful leaders,_   
_But a monster’s none of those._


End file.
